Forrester: Most Data Breaches Caused by Employees

Most data breaches are caused by mundane events such as employees losing, having stolen or simply unwittingly misusing corporate assets, a Forrester Research report has found.After questioning over 7,000 IT executives and ordinary employees across North America and Europe, 31% cited simple loss or theft as the explanation for data breaches they had experienced, ahead of inadvertent misuse by an employee (27%). Additionally, external attacks accounted for 25% of cases, and abuse by malicious insiders only 12%. Predictably, the arrival of mobile devices and the consumerization of IT hasn’t helped matters. Most organizations formulate policies for securing mobile devices but, paradoxically, lack enough tools to enforce them. Thirty-nine percent worried about a lack of data leak prevention on mobile devices, with half concerned about the consequences of old-fashioned theft. The most common form of mobile device security is password entry plus remote lock and wipe with almost a quarter admitting they haven’t started using any form of data protection at all.

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